Course description
MSc Project Management
This course is aimed at developing managers, and those with management potential, who are working in the construction, process and manufacturing industries. The course has been developed by two research centres in the School of Science & Technology (the Centre for Construction Innovation and Research and the Teesside Manufacturing Centre). It also draws upon change management expertise in Teesside Business School.
More information
Stage 1
Introduction and Professional Studies
This module is designed to introduce you to the issues related to studying beyond undergraduate level. It applies to students on taught postgraduate courses and those who are embarking on a programme of research. The module encompasses issues such as enrolment, health and safety, using Blackboard, report writing and referencing, ethics, plagiarism, time management and numerical techniques. You will also examine discipline specific areas pertinent to your pathway, which will offer you a particular grounding, skills base or understanding required at the early stage of your study. You will be introduced to personal development planning, by keeping a formal log book.
Management of Change
This module seeks to develop a critical understanding of developing business strategy as a starting point to change. You will focus on business processes and process engineering. You will then develop a more generalised understanding of managing change with particular emphasis on aspects of people management.
Advanced Project Planning and Visualisation
This module provides you with a knowledge and understanding of the principles of project planning and management. You’ll explore a range of planning and visualisation techniques used to identify and solve strategic and operational project planning in engineering projects. You will investigate the potential for applying innovative project planning techniques to plan and monitor engineering projects to deliver within time, cost, quality and clients’ satisfaction.
Stage 2
Risk Management in Engineering Projects
This module enables you to understand the principles and process of risk management, how to identify the sources of risk, quantify the severity of identified risks, the options and opportunities involved in managing risk, and the mitigation strategies required to reduce the effects of identified risks in the financial, safety and environmental aspects of a project. You’ll be introduced to Monte Carlo simulation, Delphi techniques, Ishikawa cause and effect diagrams, decision trees, PERT, using risk registers and risk management software.
Quality and Supply Chain Management
This module demonstrates how to benchmark an organisation and introduces you to the concepts of key performance indicators, total quality management (TQM), six sigma, total productive maintenance (TPM) and supply chain management. You will learn the manufacturing assessment methodology based on data provided in a benchmarking case study. Topics covered in TQM, TPM, and supply chain management will enable you to plan activities, which will improve quality programme maintenance planning and supply chain integration for an organisation and move that organisation towards sustainable competitive advantage.
Industrial Marketing
This module assumes no prior knowledge of marketing. It initially focuses on the key principles of marketing and the concept of marketing and customer orientation. The central focus of that orientation is business to business marketing. The module also examines industrial marketing from the perspective of value-based marketing and creating shareholder (or stakeholder) value. This includes evaluating value drivers, both marketing and financial, and the financial implications of marketing strategy. The module makes extensive use of case studies as part of the learning process to enable you to examine theoretical concepts in a practical context.
Stage 3
Research Project
This is the culmination of the programme of studies. You will undertake a challenging problem related substantially to your discipline. The project is linked where possible to an industrial or external partner organisation, which may even host your work and substantially direct the activity. Where this is not possible, a real or simulated real problem may be chosen as subject for the work. It is, however, expected that even where the problem is simulated or hypothetical, it will be treated as if real. The project outcomes project should be at a publishable standard.
Course structure
Core modules include Quality and Supply Chain Management, Risk Management in Engineering and Construction Projects, Innovative Project Planning and Visualisation, Management of Change and Industrial Marketing.
Careers
Graduates can expect to be employed in management positions within the construction, petrochemical, manufacturing and process industries.
Industrial experience
On this Master's degree you'll complete an industrially-related project. This, along with the involvement of industrialists, practitioners and academics in the delivery of this course, ensures that it is relevant to the demands of the process manufacturing industries.
Intermediate awards
Our master's degrees can lead to the award of a postgraduate certificate at Stage 1 (60 credits - 3 modules), a postgraduate diploma at Stage 2 (120 credits - 6 modules) or, on completion of a research project, the MSc.
Block release study
The course is available on a block release basis: you'll study for one week between 9.00am and 6.00pm with follow-up days in the next four weeks and accompanying assignment work.
